It is now well accepted that pool cleaning devices, such as pool cleaning vehicles are essential to the proper maintenance of a pool, whether the pool be above or below ground. The typical vehicle includes a housing, a bottom frame and a filtering member held between the two. The vehicle includes intake and outlet ports. Typically, the ports are in the form of a free swinging door.
As the pool cleaner moves along the surface of the pool water flows into the intake port and through to the filter bag. The typical pool cleaning vehicle includes a pump which creates suction. The suction helps cause the door to open and allow water to flow therethrough as the vehicle moves.
Upon entering the filter bag, dirt and debris is trapped therein. Water then exits through the outlet port, cleaner and with less dirt and debris prior to re-entering the pool.
After its cleaning is complete, the vehicle is lifted from the pool. Water trapped in the vehicle then drains back into the pool. In the typical case, where the ports include free-swinging doors, dirt and debris trapped in the housing simply flows back into the pool without the benefit of being cleaned. A substantial portion of the work done during the cleaning operation is thus lost as dirt and debris re-enter the pool.
In order to remedy this issue, others have used a spring loaded door for the ports instead of a free-swinging door. (U.S. Pat. No. 7,213,287). While theoretically this works and in practice, it is partially successful, limitations of the vehicle cause a less than satisfactory result in many cases. For example, the door cannot close fully because of imperfection in the fit of the door to the vehicle. Additionally, there are almost always thermal distortions in the plastic from which the typical vehicle housing and bottom frame are made. This means that upon removal of the vehicle from the water, dirt and debris will leak out of the filter bag because, even in the spring loaded version of the port, the closed position of the door does not provide a fluid tight seal. Thus, dirt and debris that was in the filter bag may well end up back in the pool, or at least a substantial portion thereof.
In virtually all cases involving a swinging door, whether or not spring loaded, fine dirt will find a way to leak through the ports. It is inherent that the door swing freely to operate properly as a vent. The door needs to swing so as not to cause a pressure drop (At least a partial vacuum is created to draw dirt and debris into the filter bag.) or to close too much, so as to block or obstruct dirt and debris from entering the filter bag through the intake port. Thus, it would be inherently unlikely for the door to both open enough to allow dirt and debris to enter the intake port, but not so much as to cause a pressure drop in the interior of the housing during vacuuming of the pool.
In another aspect of the pool cleaning device, and more specifically, the pool cleaning vehicle, when the vehicle is lifted out of the pool and after the water drains from the vehicle, the filter bag is removed from vehicle. In current and past devices, removing the filter bag is a chore. In a typical application, the bottom frame includes a slider latch with ridges and the housing includes a loop. The top portion of the slider may include ridges in some embodiments and as the latch slides against the loop addition friction is created to cause the filter bag to remain in place.
As will be appreciated, it is often difficult to get at the latch and especially when the vehicle is wet, the latch and housing with be slippery making the removal and replacement of the filter bag increasingly difficult.
What is needed is a pool cleaning device, which upon removal of the device from the pool, prevents substantially all of the dirt and debris from draining back or re-entering the pool. Additionally, a rapid release locking system for easy removal and replacement of the filter bag is also needed.